Food Safety Centre, Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research, School of Agricultural Science, University of Tasmania, Australia.
Int J Food Microbiol. 2010 May 30;139 Suppl 1:S64-78. doi: 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2010.01.041. Epub 2010 Feb 1.
The term ecophysiology suggests that a natural connection exists between microbial ecology and microbial physiology, the former being concerned with the responses of microbial populations to environmental influences, and the latter with activities within individual cells. In this contribution we choose to integrate these as far as possible and also indicate how understanding of both is benefiting from advances in molecular biology and informatics. We consider how microbial dispersal relates to microbial survival, recovery and proliferation, including the significance of random factors (stochasticity) in continuation of bacterial lineages, observing that minor environmental changes, can greatly influence the potential for food-borne disease. Homeostasis and membrane transport are identified as potential targets to control food-borne pathogens and the role of compatible solutes in stress protection is presented. Phenotypic variation in genetically homogeneous populations is highlighted as a major component of the overall microbial survival strategy. The marked influence and potential of predictive microbiology as an aid to food safety management is discussed, as is the need for greater knowledge of the ecophysiology of microbes in the growth/no growth region. The application of fundamental scientific principles, including thermodynamics, chemistry and microbial physiology is advocated as the basis for development of theory underpinning microbial ecophysiology. Advancing microbial food safety continues to require development of rapid, quantitative methods as an early warning system and mechanism to curtail microbial food-borne disease outbreaks. However, advances made by technologists and molecular biologists must be combined with knowledge of ecophysiology: e.g. biological rates will continue to constrain resolution of the recalcitrant problem of reducing the time required for enrichment processes. The discussion presented leads to the conclusion that microbial and molecular methods are appropriate for enumeration and prevalence studies but that predictive model development should continue for the purposes of comparative process control and to support the risk assessment paradigm. We conclude also that contributions of human error or complacency to microbial food-borne illness will continue to thwart the best efforts of microbiologists and technologists to reduce its incidence. Decision-support technologies reporting in real-time appear to have potential to make objective food safety decisions thereby reducing the impact of human indifference to the application of simple, but effective, food hygiene rules.
生态生理学这一术语表明，微生物生态学和微生物生理学之间存在着天然的联系，前者关注的是微生物种群对环境影响的反应，后者关注的是单个细胞内的活动。在本研究中，我们选择尽可能地整合这两个方面，并指出理解这两个方面如何受益于分子生物学和信息学的进步。我们考虑了微生物的分散与微生物的生存、恢复和增殖之间的关系，包括随机因素（随机性）在细菌谱系延续中的重要性，观察到微小的环境变化可能极大地影响食源性疾病的发生潜力。我们确定了体内平衡和膜运输是控制食源性病原体的潜在目标，并提出了相容溶质在应激保护中的作用。遗传同质群体中的表型变异被强调为整体微生物生存策略的主要组成部分。突出了预测微生物学作为食品安全管理辅助手段的显著影响和潜力，以及在生长/不生长区域中了解微生物生态生理学的必要性。本文还讨论了应用基础科学原理（包括热力学、化学和微生物生理学）作为支持微生物生态生理学理论发展的基础的必要性。推进微生物食品安全仍然需要开发快速、定量的方法作为早期预警系统和机制，以遏制微生物食源性疾病的爆发。然而，技术人员和分子生物学家的进展必须与生态生理学知识相结合：例如，生物学速率将继续限制减少富集过程所需时间的难题的解决。所提出的讨论得出的结论是，微生物和分子方法适用于计数和流行率研究，但预测模型的开发应继续用于比较过程控制和支持风险评估范例。我们还得出结论，人为错误或自满对微生物食源性疾病的贡献将继续挫败微生物学家和技术人员减少其发病率的努力。实时报告的决策支持技术似乎有可能做出客观的食品安全决策，从而减少人类对简单但有效的食品卫生规则的漠不关心对食品安全的影响。
